For You? Free.

Xavier, Baby E, and Alexander  - too many years ago, yet not so many

I have a condition.

A condition called "pre-mourning."

I don't call it that. It's what my "expensive friend" *coughtherapistcough* does. 

The lovely lady that I pay a pretty penny to sit across from me and chat tells me this is the name of what I have.

What I have is this: I lament the loss of what is to be whilst I have it sitting right in front of me.

Pre-mourning.

This incredible picture above? I can't even look at it without feeling the wind knocked out of me and having to fall back all needing smelling salts brought to me on the chaise.

These three glorious angel-boys are mine. My boys so long ago, yet, not so long ago. How could I not have felt the golden moment when this picture was taken, while I had it in my hand? I can guess.

Probably some of that "pre-mourning" stuff. I was probably lamenting some photo that I had found that morning that showed them still in diapers. Whilst, right there, I had heaven on earth, right there.

Pre-mourning.

A few days ago when I came across the picture above, while searching for a picture of my husband for another post, I fell headfirst into the jaws of this Pre-Mourning situation.

This state of being that feels like such an unconquerable sadness, I can't even swallow away the ball in my throat. Oh, the sweet days with my little ones are flying for them, and slipping through the grasp of mine. So much in the same way my littlest tries to catch water under the tub faucet.

I sit across from my "expensive friend,"  and I lament the passing of the days, complete with back of the hand on the forehead, looking off mid-distance. The whole deal. Stuff they give out Academy Awards over.

I sigh to her:

Me: "but.but... the days of toy trains are gone.."

She: "but they're still home with you now."

Me: "but... but... it's all over, my days of fullness are all over."

She: "but they're still home with you now."

Me: "but....so soon...t.hey'll be gone, gone..."

She: "but they're still home with you now."

Bless her sweet heart, she tries--oh, how she tries--over and over and over. Same-time-next-week at our next appointment she tries. She has hope, but will I ever get to where she hopes to get me?

BUT THEY'RE STILL HOME WITH YOU NOW.

What she tries so delicately to tell me and hint at, since she is unable to tell me directly (you know, rules of therapy and  insights arrived on one's own are much more meaningful, etc.),  is that my sadness is over not living in the moment--being there in the day captured in the pictures taken. Missing the present for lamenting the passing. Not being with them in all the glory of the being there. At that age, at that stage, with them.

My expensive friend--I ache for her, and for the pleading I see in her own eyes, as she tries to convince me. She so badly wants to teach me how to lift the gloom that takes on a life of its own once I birth it.

I carry a piece of my paper in my purse that I pull out and try to read. Maybe someday I'll be able to without the lens of a watery blur. I hear the words in my friend's voice. I stare at it. It reads, "Who pushes back on time to stop it is pushed back by time in its march. He who yields to it- finds it on his side."
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